The Masticator was started by two Minneapolis-area visionaries as a zine in the summer of 2004. Issue two was never realized, and half of its founding force moved to Brooklyn. Three years later, the electronic version of The Masticator has far eclipsed its single print-bound predecessor. Today, The Masticator posts art reviews, random urban snapshots, gentle political mockery, and other short articles on subjects like cars, fashion, and books.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

The Curta Pocket Calculator

"It is a precision instrument, performing calculations mechanically, employing neither electricity nor electronic components. The sensation of its operation is best likened to that of winding a fine thirty-five-millimeter camera. It is the smallest mechanical calculating machine ever constructed.

"It is the invention of Curt Herzstark, an Austrian, who developed it while a prisoner in Buchenwald. The camp authorities actually encouraged his work, you see. 'Intelligence slave,' his title there. They wished his calculator to be given to the Führer, at the end of the war. But Buchenwald was liberated in 1945 by the Americans. Herzstark had survived."

That was a monologue from a character out of William Gibson's excellent 2003 novel Pattern Recognition about the object pictured above.

The first time I read the book, two years ago, I assumed that the Curta was an invention of the author. When I re-read it this summer, I noticed in the acknowledgements that Gibson thanks a James Dowling "for introducing me to the Curta calculator."

When Curt Herzstark got out of the concentration camp, he arranged to have his invention produced. The Curta was made from 1948 to 1972, the year that electronic pocket calculators got cheap enough to put the mechanical calculator out of business. They seem to be going for between $600 and $1,200 on eBay right now.